A Simple Ring
by Alchemical Angel
Summary: My first Royai Fanfic. Enjoy. Rated T for mild swearing.


A keen eye for detail was a characteristic of almost every successful alchemist. Such a talent made an easier feat out of deconstructing and reconstructing, as well as copying and appropriately drawing transmutation circles. In Roy Mustang, that eye for detail met strict military discipline, enhancing such a talent even further. It was no surprise, then, when he noticed with horror the ring on his First Lieutenant's finger as she entered the office on that dreary Monday morning.

Further shock was induced as he noted what type of ring it was. He even slouched deeper into his desk chair when he observed the spring in her step and a phantom of a smile on her face. He groaned as Lieutenant Hawkeye placed the normal pile of paperwork on his desk and reached her own, without even a twitch of her hand in the direction of her pistol. She was in an incredibly good mood today. It unnerved him.

The flirtatious, womanizing Colonel had seen a Claddagh ring upon Hawkeye's left hand. He had bought such rings himself, to give to whatever girlfriend had held his interest for more than a week. Wearing it on the right hand in one way-with the insignia facing inwards- signified she had no boyfriend. The insignia facing outwards on the same hand meant she was spoken for. Wearing it on the left with the insignia facing outwards meant she was engaged. The insignia facing inwards meant she was married. According to the way she was wearing it, Riza Hawkeye was some lucky man's fiancée.

Mustang muttered to himself. He had never known anything of Hawkeye's life outside the office. He hadn't even known that she had a boyfriend! Thinking back on the week before, he scolded himself inwardly for not noticing before. The Lieutenant had been rather anxious on Saturday, and had been unusually eager to leave the office. It all fit together now.

"Taisa," stated Hawkeye, startling him. His train of thought derailed, killing some pedestrians about it. Mustang's gaze rose blankly from his desk to greet the calm visage of the blonde across the room.

"You haven't touched your paperwork. And I've recently received a new shipment of ammo from a shop around the corner," she said.

"Point made, Chuui. Point made." He sighed as he picked up a pen and swiftly slid a form from the top of the pile, gazing out the window as he did so. It was raining.

By now the repair crew had arrived, and his thoughts were back on track. Roy stared more intently out the window, his obsidian eyes tracing the tortuous routes the droplets took as they streamed down the window on the outside. He hated the rain. Bleak and bleary, Central seemed like a ghost town on the outside of the office. He could hear the thrum of the rain outside, washing the grime off the sordid streets. At the sound, he recalled the thundering footsteps of Ishbalans, running for their lives. The silver streaks running down the windows in his mind became the silken tears of those who died, crushed and cast aside beneath his own gloved hands. Their fate was branded on their tawny skin by the flames from his fingers, the flames conjured from Hell itself.

Dammit! With the loss of his Lieutenant came the loss of his sanity. He snatched another paper off the pile's top, scribbling furiously. Hawkeye raised a brow at this new burst of energy.

"Is something troubling you, Taisa?" she inquired.

"No, Chuui. There's nothing amiss," her superior answered. _Nothing you could fix._

He turned his attention to the window again. That spring in her step, on a day like this…. And why hadn't she told him? He remembered Riza was never one to speak of her love life in the workplace. Did she intend to stay, and keep working for them, or would she retire and raise a family? He shuddered as he pictured her maternal instincts, the incident of Buraha's potty training surfacing in his mind.

The ring was definitely telling the truth. He was losing the most loyal to him. Roy sighed again. A suspicious glance from the Lieutenant followed.

"Taisa?"

Roy stood, his gloved hands pressing against the desk. "When's the occasion, Hawkeye?"

Hawkeye looked surprised. "What occasion, Taisa?"

_'Why was she dodging what was so obvious?', _he thought. Roy narrowed his black eyne as he answered, "Your wedding."

"Excuse me? Taisa, I have no such plans," Hawkeye said, wondering if this was a ploy to escape the paperwork that remained half-completed on his desk.

"You're engaged," stated the Colonel, somewhat frustrated by his tight-lipped Lieutenant's antics. "…Aren't you?"

"That's news to me, Taisa. As I said, I had no such plans."

"B-But…That ring you're wearing!"

"Buraha found it under my bed yesterday. I figured I'd wear it at least once. Who knows when I'll lose it and never see it again," she answered.

"You're right handed, Chuui!" Roy exclaimed, still not convinced.

"You're right, Taisa. I figured I'd keep my right hand free for shooting," she said.

Roy was quiet a moment, then extended his arm and pointed at her, as if faced off against a criminal in an interrogation. His interrogation was ludicrous. He had that look on his face, the Lieutenant noticed. He was determined to pump the truth out of her as if she _was_ a criminal. She mentally sighed. Why wouldn't the man just do the paperwork?!

"Then why are you so happy today?!" He demanded.

"On Saturday, Buraha had been eating grass outside the apartment, and I dropped him off at the vet that morning before coming to work. Today, the veterinarian there said he was completely fine, and that it was nothing to worry about. I'm not sure where you're going with this, Taisa."

Roy stood there, that same blank look frozen upon his face.

"…Taisa?"

With a hardly dignified bound, the Colonel sped across the room and embraced the lieutenant.

"So you're not leaving, then?" he inquired, like a little boy.

The Lieutenant looked rather disconcerted. She sniffed- not haughtily or disdainfully, but gently, like a mother would after refusing her child a cookie before dinner. Sure, the Lieutenant was disciplined, and she was solemn. But Mustang knew that his Lieutenant was gentle, and she was warm.

"Of course not, Taisa."

"Good." He responded softly, inwardly expecting to be shot at any moment.

"Taisa," the woman locked in his bear-hug stated.

"Yes, Chuui?"

"This is a breach of protocol."

A smile stretched across his lips. But his answer was cut short as the door swung open.

"Hey, Chief-OHMYGOD!" Havoc stopped dead in his tracks. Tracks…Mustang wished he could transmute a train to run the smoker down with. But that would mean retracting his arms from his beautiful lieutenant…

"Kudos, Colonel! When are you guys tying the knot?!" asked Havoc, jovially noting the ring on Hawkeye's finger and miscalculating, as Roy had done the entire day.

"That's it," Hawkeye said, softly, as she drew her pistol from its holster, "and I was really trying to keep the mud and blood off my uniform today for when I go pick up Buraha." Her pale fingers slid the ring off with ease. She was out in the hallway shooting at Havoc almost before the silver jewelry hit the floor.

The Lieutenant hadn't been lying about the new ammo shipment. The bullets glittered as they traced Havoc's path out of the office and down the hall, the thundering gunshots doing a good job of muffling the obscenities pouring from Havoc's mouth as he realized, once again, that he had misjudged a situation. The girls from the flower shop, he thought with chagrin, weren't going to go out with him if he became a eunuch. He'd have to watch himself more carefully from now on.

The two weren't out of the building yet. Roy sighed as he looked out at the rain and picked up Hawkeye's coat from where it was neatly draped over her chair. He walked out of the office, that blank look masking his features again.

At this time, the Colonel noted with amusement, Havoc had realized that dodging the secretaries and their paper work up at the front entrance was a lot more time consuming then just slipping out past the security post out back and into a side alley. Unfortunately, an about face meant he had to directly pass the Lieutenant….

"Chuui!" called Mustang from down the hall, back at the entrance to their office.

Hawkeye immediately gave their superior officer her undivided attention, or so Havoc thought. The blond man sprinted for the corridor that led to the investigations department, but a bullet punctured the wall just a few inches in front of him. The man froze like a deer in the headlights.

Hawkeye misunderstood Roy's motive for standing out of the office with a coat.

"Wait until the rain dies down, Taisa. Your gloves won't work in the rain."

Mustang scowled. Didn't she think he knew that? He noticed that she had been kinder in words this time, though. He hadn't heard the word "useless".

"No, Chuui. _You_ need to put your coat on before you run out in the rain after that nimrod."

Havoc cowered beneath the bullet hole in the wall. "Degrading an officer in the workplace is hardly efficient, Taisa," he managed to say, shivering violently.

"Like you should talk about efficiency, Havoc, hopping about like a rabbit and distracting Hawkeye from her paperwork," the Colonel countered.

Havoc was about to say something he would surely regret, but Hawkeye interrupted the exchange.

"Thank you for your concern, Taisa. I finished my paperwork a few hours ago, actually. Give me my coat and I'll be going," she said, her countenance had lost its agitated edge, and she no longer looked irked. Roy handed the woman her coat.

"Oh! Wait, Chuui!" He yelled after her. She had swiftly turned and had taken a few steps towards the door.

"Yes, Taisa?"

"Your ring! You forgot your ring!"

Riza narrowed her eyes. He seemed unusually eager for such a trifling matter.

"Thank you for reminding me, Taisa," she said, turning and brushing past him. She wondered if the vet would charge extra for holding Buraha for her a little longer.

Mustang had walked past as she thought, and had reached the office before her. They had both left Havoc in his crouched position, shivering as if the cold sweat on his brow was freezing into ice.

When she entered, she gingerly lowered herself to her knees to look for the ring she had dropped. It should've been somewhere around her desk, but she couldn't see it anywhere. Colonel Mustang had gone to his desk. She couldn't see what he was doing-her own desk was blocking her vision of him- but she could hear his drawers opening and closing.

"I dropped it on the floor, Taisa," she said, wondering if he was helping her look or just hiding his paperwork.

"Oh! How silly of me," he said in his normal, cocky tone. It wasn't as soft as a child's, as he had spoken to her earlier when he thought she would leave, nor was it as hard as it was out in the hall, when he had been rather irritated the Havoc had cheated him out of his moment with the Lieutenant.

She hadn't noticed though, she had just rolled her eyes and continued searching.

"I found it," he stated simply. She rose and walked over. The Lieutenant _had_ noticed that he had dropped the formality in his statement. Hawkeye prepared herself for prank of some sort.

"Th-That's not my ring, Taisa." Even so, she was unprepared. To think that a woman who had, without flinching, shot down dozens and dozens of Ishbalan rebels in her years of service, was too startled for words by the sight of a little black box in which a diamond ring was carefully tucked into a velvet cushion. Roy was smiling sincerely. Her instincts told her it wasn't a prank.

"Now that's not fair. I stopped calling you _Chuui,_ so you have to stop calling me that.

And as for the ring, I had rather hoped it was."

"…Roy," came the name from her mouth, quite softly. Roy became very nervous.

"Yes, Riza?"

"You are aware that marriage involves paperwork, right? Lots and lots of paperwork."

He laughed. "I am quite aware. But what about you? Will you take this ring and marry me?"

It was Riza's turn to laugh. "Yes," she breathed, and hugged him tightly. Poor Havoc had recovered by this time, and had recalled why he had originally gone to the office in the first place. He opened the door and his jaw dropped.

"This time, Havoc," Mustang advised wisely, his arms still wrapped around his Lieutenant, "I think it best you don't say anything, or it will be embers you'll be dodging on the way out the door tonight."

* * *

(A/N: This is my first fanfiction in general, and my first work to be published on I apologize if there's still any kinks in this story that are results of that.) 


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